Mr. Ali’s Place

Time for some more typing in this wonderful web log. Alright, where to start, maybe ill talk about my 2nd and 3rd day in Iran. My 2nd day I woke up knowing which bottle in the shower was shampoo and body soap, which was good. I also woke up that morning at 6am or so to come to my dads work. That morning I met a million of his close friends and co-workers at the research center. Something I find funny is that there is a guy that brings tea for everyone in the morning, then milk a few hours later, then tea at around 11am then tea again at around 12:30pm for lunch and again at like 2 or 3pm. Add this to the tea I had for breakfast and dinner, I had 6 cups of tea that day. That’s more tea then I have had all year, all in that one day. I had some doogh(Persian drink) too, which is the best tasting doogh I have probably ever had. Lets see, what else went on that day…oh ya, for lunch (if you want to call it that, we were “at lunch” for 3 hours) to my moms sisters house. My aunt and two cousins were there, we had fish, rice, chicken, and salad sherazi(a persian salad). After that we went back to my dads office and met some more of his coworkers and I heard some more “cheshmentan roshan” from everyone (my American friends, ignore his part). Not much went on that night, so I will continue to talk about my 3rd day, which was yesterday. My third day was more exciting, but I still got up at 6am, but that’s alright. I brought my laptop this time to my dad’s office to play some Need for speed: underground and minesweeper . At around 10am we called a taxi to come pick us up and go to what is known as a big area where its just full of computer type stuff. We called a taxi even though we had a car because the parking was going to be crazy, so we got a taxi to get dropped off and not have to worry about that. I took a few pictures inside what I like to call the computer mecca, but I didn’t take as many as I wanted to because it’s kind of strange to go into a mall for example and start taking pictures of stores. But anyway this mecca/mall was just full of all the computer stuff you can find on newegg and more. They had plasma TV’s, lcd monitors, Logitech z680’s, laptops from all makers and pda’s. Everything was top of the line and sometimes even more advanced then America. For instance in one of the pictures I took there was a cell phone shop with a few cell phones not available to buy in America. Now you may be thinking that all the prices were really high and whatnot, but in the reality, it was either the same or a little lower. For all my geek friends, you would have enjoyed it, because if newegg was a real store, this would be it and more. After spending an hour or so there, we came back and had some lunch. A few hours later we left to go home to get ready to go out again. We were going out to drop off my stepmom to some reception because one of her family members passed away recently. After we dropped her off, we went out to the house I lived in when I lived in Iran. I took some pictures of it, but none of the inside because I didn’t want to be rude because if I was living there I wouldn’t want some strange people taking pictures of my house and posting them on the internet . We also walked in our old street and ate at the pizza place we use to eat pizzas from, it was great. That’s pretty much it for my 3rd day. Right now it is 8:30pm on my 4th day in my dad’s office and in the afternoon after lunch we are going to the university he teaches at to give out a final. That’s also were ill upload some pictures of the house and other stuff because they will have a faster connection.

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I got to the airport at around midnight. When we landed they brought out a portable staircase and we all got loaded up in a bus and were taken closer to the airport. I got through the airport security with absolutely no problems, thank god, and went for my bags, which alone must have took at least 30mins… This is where it gets interesting, and I wish I took a picture of this, when we got close to the exit of the Tehran airport, there must have been at least of few hundred people crowded around the exit waiting for whoever it was they were waiting for to come out of the airport. I saw my dad in the huge pool/mess of all the people and saw my cousin fatti(sp?). My dad and I went to his car, which is a 2002 Peugeot 206, I will take pictures of it later, and made our way out of the airport. One thing I need to vent is how horrible the traffic and the way people drive over here. I was scared for my life on the drive home! Yeah, it’s pretty bad, I mean crazy bad, on the way to my dads house someone was driving on the WRONG side of the road to beat the traffic….that’s just not right. So we got home and I met my stepmom, it was a little strange and awkward, but she is nice. We all talked for a bit and went to bed around 2am. That morning i woke up and did my little daily routine of things (shower, shave, etc). Because I didn’t ask before hand, and there must have been at least 5 different bottles of liquid soap stuff that only had Persian writing on them, I just picked one and used it as shampoo, later finding out it was liquid soap, heh. We ate Persian cheese and Persian bread (sangack) for breakfast and went for a walk outside. My dad lives in huge apartment complex, and right next to it there are a few dozen different types of stores and whatnot. That night we were having some family over (uncle and aunts) so we bought some fruits, sabzi(garnish stuff) and chicken kabob. We ate lunch when we came back and then I went to bed for four hours or so. I woke up to get myself ready for all the guests we were going to have. Ill say, people just didn’t stop coming in, including us, there was a total of 14 people. Oh yeah, my dads apartment is pretty big in size, there are 3 rooms and 2 bath, so it wasn’t too crowded with 14 people, ill take pictures later so to show what I am talking about. Right now it is around 8am and I am in my dad’s office at his research building of organic chemicals testing place thing. I brought my camera to take pictures, but what do you know, I forgot my memory card, ya, I am pretty pissed, but its ok, ill be back. I’m going to end this now, it’s gotten a bit long, and I know how much my friends hate to read .

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alright, here i am.

i have to say, that 11hr flight from san fran to here was such a drain, econ class is sooooooooo small. there was little to no room and i couldnt even sleep. the movies they showed sucked too (50 first dates and girl with a periced earing) at least they will be showing starsky and hutch from here to tehran!

oh ya, the food wasnt bad tho, and they gave you a lot

one last thing, check out the pimp car my cousin just got

its a 2001 ferrari 360!!!!!

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DEPART SAN FRANCISCO June 17th at 4:00PM
ARRIVE AMSTERDAM ON June 18th at 3:30PM
(a fun 2 hour wait)
DEPART AMSTERDAM June 18th at 5:30PM
ARRIVE TEHRAN, IRAN 11:59PM ON June 18th

DEPART TEHRAN, IRAN July 18th at 3:30AM
ARRIVE AMSTERDAM 6:00AM
DEPART AMSTERDAM 10:45AM
ARRIVE SAN FRANCISCO 1:55PM on July 18th
AND RATE IS ABOUT $(WAY TOO MUCH).

Donno why this travel agent is so obsessed about using the caps key, maybe its to make it stand out more? Anyway, thanks to my cousin for getting all this worked out.

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